YouTube Tests Download and Creative Commons License Options

Eric Steuer, February 12th, 2009

YouTube just made an incredibly exciting announcement: it’s testing an option that gives video owners the ability to allow downloads and share their work under Creative Commons licenses. The test is being launched with a handful of partners, including Stanford, Duke, UC Berkeley, UCLA, and UCTV.

We are always looking for ways to make it easier for you to find, watch, and share videos. Many of you have told us that you wanted to take your favorite videos offline. So we’ve started working with a few partners who want their videos shared universally and even enjoyed away from an Internet connection.

Many video creators on YouTube want their work to be seen far and wide. They don’t mind sharing their work, provided that they get the proper credit. Using Creative Commons licenses, we’re giving our partners and community more choices to make that happen. Creative Commons licenses permit people to reuse downloaded content under certain conditions.

The thing you don’t get is that everything under Youtube (IANAL) has been in effect under a cc-by-nd license. It seemed (IANAL) like you could reuse the videos on any commercial site with impunity– it was expected in the culture with those “embed” tags.

Now if you go and say only a select few are actually CC, you’ve opened a can of worms. (IANAL).

This is certainly interesting! While Greg raises an interesting point, it will be interesting to see how the decide to integrate this. Perhaps things with all rights reserved will not (should not?) have embed codes and things with a license to share will allow either embedding, downloading or both depending on the CC options.

this is too cool….because essentially, what this means is that any material….both professional or amateur, will be made legal to view and share on youtube. for example, anything such as television episodes to popular independent genres can be shared without copyright infringement. as long as the proper people are given credit, there is nothing wrong. thanks youtube…..finally!

Yes Sergei, i concede a point to your “probs” !
YouTube would be take the monopoly position…
But this is the free market economy…
Wait a few Years, and you will understand the meaning of “onesidedness”!
Greets

@Jarod White: Actually, tv shows will only be okay to share if the copyright holders grant CC license instead of retaining their copyrights, which is unlikely. If you, the user, post a tv show and mark it “Creative Commons,” even if you give credit, you’re still going to get your video taken down, and maybe a slap on the wrist to boot.